The Reluctant Bride (33 page)

“It’s easy. Just hook your leg over the horn when I lift you in the saddle.”

Tanzy found the feeling of Russ’s hands around her waist so distracting, she nearly fell out of the saddle on the other side. Russ grinned.

“Don’t tell me I’m going to have to tie you to the saddle.”

“It’s easier to ride astride.”

“Not if you want Ethel to approve of you.”

She wondered how he could speak so lightly of a woman who’d turned on him because he didn’t return her feelings. She managed to wrap her leg around the saddle horn and get her skirts smoothed under her.

“Except for myself, the only person whose approval I’ll want will be my husband.”

“That’s a mighty independent way of thinking.”

“I left my home so I could think that way. I’m not about to give in to Ethel, Stocker, or anybody else. If you can live with their disapproval, I can, too.”

Russ mounted up and they walked their horses out of the ranch yard toward a band of trees that nestled against the valley wall. Though the nights could be very cool, the midday temperatures were hot. The sun was so intense she felt it burning her skin. It was cool and moist under the trees, the fragrance of pine and spruce giving the air a tangy, clean scent. Water seeped from the rocks, forming numerous pools and bogs that nourished tall, thick grasses, broad-leaved cattails, pink primroses, and blue columbine. She would have to remember to search here for flowers when those exposed to the hot sun faded.

“What do you plan to do when you leave here?” Russ asked.

She hadn’t expected that question. She didn’t welcome it. She didn’t have an answer. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then why don’t you stay?”

Chapter Twenty-one

“Are you saying I could have this job as long as I want it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We like your cooking.”

“I mean why me and not somebody else who cooks just as well?”

Russ kept his gaze straight ahead, as though he expected some dangerous animal might jump out into the path before them.

“The boys like you.”

They might like somebody else.”

“They might, but they already like you.”

Clearly subtlety was lost on Russ. “You’re the owner of the ranch, the one who makes all the decisions. Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.” He still didn’t look at her.

“Why? And don’t mention my cooking.”

“I already told you.”

“No, you wrote it on a piece of paper. It’s not the same.”

He didn’t answer, nor did he turn his gaze to her. She wondered if he was merely uncomfortable being alone with a woman he cared for, if he was uncomfortable talking to a woman directly, or if he was still having trouble letting himself trust a woman not to hurt him.

“Welt told me why you don’t trust women. I don’t know what you want to say, what you feel, but if you could trust me enough to tell me that you couldn’t read, you ought to be able to tell me if you have any feelings for me.”

“I do.” The answer came quickly, was spoken firmly. “I like you.”

“I like you, too, but I’m talking about something stronger than that.”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. You’ve already said you wouldn’t marry me.”

“I said that before I knew you very well. I’m starting to think I ought to reconsider my answer.”

He turned toward her in surprise, but his expression was more apprehensive than expectant. “I thought your ideas were fixed.”

“My values, yes, but my understanding of people and situations can change as I learn and understand more.”

“What have you learned?”

“Can we get down? Trying to get used to this saddle is ruining my concentration. Send it back to Stocker. I can’t let you pay for something I can’t use.”

“Try to get used to it,” he said as he put his hands around her waist and lifted her from the saddle. “I don’t want to give anybody an excuse to say you’re not a lady.”

He set her down and reached for the horses’ reins before she could look into his face.

There’s a fallen tree a little way from here. You can rest there.”

“I don’t need to rest. I just want to be able to talk to you without having to worry about the saddle.”

“It’s not far.”

She was beginning to wonder if the reason Russ had never married could all be blamed on women. She couldn’t imagine the wild youth Welt described having turned into a man who was too unsure of himself to look at a woman when he talked to her. If she’d been one of his cows, she’d bet he wouldn’t have hesitated to look her straight in the eye.

Russ stopped in a small clearing made by a shallow pool several feet wide that ran off in a little rivulet to join several other similar trickles of water on its way to the stream that coursed through the valley. A thick covering of ponderosa pine shielded them from the sun. The needle-strewn floor was dotted with patches of purple lupine. Birds in the trees above argued with squirrels, while a mouselike creature scampered over the ground collecting bits of food dropped by careless squirrels. The bark had fallen off the downed tree long ago, allowing the elements to wear the trunk smooth.

“It’s hard to believe such a quiet corner exists so close to the cabin,” Tanzy said as she settled herself on the tree trunk. “I’ll have to get outside more often.”

“Don’t come alone,” Russ said. “I don’t trust Stocker not to try to kidnap you again.”

She doubted Stocker cared that much, but she didn’t want to cause any of the men to worry about her. “I’ll remember. Now, explain why you think it would be a good idea for me to stay here.”

“You don’t know where you want to go or what you want to do when you get there. It only makes sense to stay here until you do.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m assuming you meant you wanted me to stay even if I did know where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Is that true?”

“I already told you in what I wrote.”

“That was very nice, but it didn’t tell me what I would need to know to stay here.”

“What’s that?”

“I want a husband and a family. I could only stay here as a married woman.”

“One of the boys might marry you.”

“I’m not asking about one of the boys. I’m asking about you.”

“You said—”

“Suppose I changed my mind. Would you marry me then?”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“We’re not talking about a trip to the blacksmith to replace a loose shoe,” she snapped, frustrated. “We’re talking about marriage.”

“Any man would want to marry you. You’re beautiful, nice—”

“And I don’t lie to you. I know all that, but it’s not enough. I would have to love the man I marry and he would have to love me. Do you love me?”

“No.”

His answer came with startling quickness.

“But I like you a lot. You’re just as good as you said in your letters.”

“Considering I didn’t write those letters, maybe you’d better tell me what they said.”

“You could read them if you like. I kept them.”

Now that was a surprise, when he couldn’t read. Russ was more of a sentimentalist than she’d thought.

“I’m sure my friend exaggerated my good qualities.”

“She didn’t.”

“I could only stay here if we loved each other and got married.”

“Why?”

“One, it would ruin my reputation otherwise. Two, I want children of my own. I wouldn’t get them keeping house for a bunch of cowboys. Three, I want a husband I can love and who loves me.”

“If you stayed, maybe I could learn to love you.”

“It has to work both ways.”

“Do you think you could learn to love me?”

She thought for a moment. So much had changed in her feelings for Russ, she didn’t know what she felt, but she didn’t want to turn her back on the possibility that she could come to love this man. She was already halfway there.

“We’ve got about a month and a half to find out.”

“Can we start now?”

Tanzy was a little surprised. “I suppose so. How do you propose to begin?”

She didn’t have long to wait to find out. Russ stepped forward, drew her to her feet, pulled her to him, and kissed her. It wasn’t their first kiss, but it still had the power to surprise her—and excite her as well. The sheer power of the experience was enough to overwhelm her senses, but there was more to it now, much more, and that added greatly to its effect on her.

She was eager to kiss him back. More than eager. She
needed
to kiss him. A large part of her had been reaching out to him from the moment they’d met but had been held in check. But once released from the mental control, she felt nearly swept away by the desire to burrow into his embrace, to cling to his body, to lose herself in a feeling that was so pleasurable she wondered how she’d lived this long without it.

Russ broke the kiss long before she was ready. She reached for him, held on tight for fear he would take his arms from around her. They gazed at each other wordlessly, he looking as awed as she felt.

“Do you always kiss breathless the women you’re trying to fall in love with?” she asked when she was finally able to gather her senses. “It’s probably a good tactic. It leaves them so intoxicated they can’t think why they’d want to resist you.”

“I never wanted to make any woman fall in love with me,” Russ said, “but you’re different. I knew that the first night I saw you. I’d have married you then if you’d wanted. It was only after regaining my senses that I knew it wouldn’t work.”

Russ didn’t seem to have any difficulty expressing himself now. It seemed kissing loosened his tongue. She’d have to keep that in mind.

“You still believe it wouldn’t work?” she asked.

“Not for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you think that by defending my property I’m feuding with Stocker. I’ll always hate him for what he and his brother did, but I know it was my mother’s and sister’s weaknesses, their lack of principles, that allowed it. Nothing I can do will bring them back or change what happened, so all I want is to be left alone.”

“When did you start to think that?”

“When I was in jail. I had more than enough time to think about what I’d done with my life and what I wanted to do in the future. The four of us—Tim, Oren, Buck, and me—sort of gravitated toward each other because we wanted a second chance. This ranch is for
all
of us. Without it, they have no place to go, no way to rebuild their lives.”

Tanzy couldn’t believe she’d misread the situation so badly. Russ wasn’t feuding. What had made her so afraid she couldn’t see what Russ was doing? For one thing, she hadn’t known about Tim, Buck, and Oren. For another, she hadn’t had a chance to see beyond the surface of a man who wasn’t eager to have anyone get to know him. Though she hadn’t believed everything she’d heard, she’d been too willing to let what others said prevent her from learning the truth on her own. In a way, she was just as bad as the people of Boulder Gap.

She lowered her gaze, unable to look him in the eye. “You make me ashamed of myself,” she said.

He lifted her chin until their gazes met. “Why?”

“I let my fears and prejudices keep me from looking deeply enough to see that you’re not at all what I thought, that the situation isn’t like it was back home. You’ve suffered too much from being misjudged.”

His gaze intensified. “I suffered because of what my mother and sister did to themselves, because my family made me feel unwanted and unloved. There’s nothing the people of Boulder Gap can do to hurt me.”

“They can take away your ranch.”

“I won’t let them.”

“They can take away your chance for happiness.”

“Only you can do that.”

Tanzy felt her breath desert her entirely. The very air seemed devoid of oxygen. She felt dizzy, disoriented, as though she was going to faint.

“You can’t mean that. I’ve just confessed to being as blind and prejudiced as everyone in Boulder Gap.”

“I did some stupid things when I was young. But I learned from those mistakes just as you learned. I say we forget the past and start over.”

“You can do that?”

“I’ve already done it once. It’ll be easier the second time.”

He leaned forward and kissed her again. She desperately wanted to get lost in his arms, to become intoxicated by his kisses, but she had to think before she let herself be carried away on the tide of her emotions.

“You keep kissing me like that and I won’t be able to think at all.”

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked with a lopsided smile.

“It is for me. I’m plagued with a mind that insists upon understanding everything I do.”

Russ didn’t retreat. He took her hands in his. “What does your brain need to know?”

“Lots of things, like if I’m really seeing you rather than your handsome face.”